Blood and the Treasury

Forgive me: another post born from the intellectual wellspring that is Ron Paul’s Iowa boomlet. But this one has little to do with the man himself. Instead, I want to take a closer look at Paul’s anti-militarism; and, more specifically, I want to explore what Paul’s significant leftist support on these grounds says about American liberalism, past and present.

Although his opposition to the War on Drugs plays a large part in Paul’s appeal to left-of-center voters, it’s Paul’s opposition to America’s post-war policy of endless war, of being the so-called global policeman, that really excites leftists. Our own chastised — and beloved! — Ryan is a good case-in-point. But he’s hardly alone. Many of Obama’s most strident critics have railed against him not only for the ways in which he’s concretized Bush policies like indefinite detention and Executive Privilege, but also for how he’s expanded upon once-nascent Bush initiatives, most notably the use of unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen.

In response, many potential and former Obama supporters have embraced Paul, often with an intensity indicative of their belief that Obama’s militarism is a fundamental betrayal of liberalism. On the surface, this makes sense; Democrats are the “soft” ones, right? The party of dirty peacenik hippies, Jane Fonda, and a bunch of other long-defunct clichés of the Baby Boomer era (like zombies, they refuse to die). But if we look at the history of liberalism in America, at its high-points and its sainted heroes, can this sacred cow of conventional wisdom withstand closer scrutiny?

This is the central question addressed in a recent, brilliant post by Matt Stoller at Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism. It’s a long post and it’s quite well-argued; I can’t really do it full justice with a few block-quote. But, in short, Stoller presents a compelling — and, for liberals, unsettling — narrative that the great liberal eras in American history have always, always coincided with a significant increase in the size and score of the nation’s war machine. Lincoln, Wilson, FDR: these Presidents established many of the foundational planks of American liberalism’s ideological and historical infrastructure — but they also all presided over what was, at their time, the largest mobilizations for warfare in human history. As Stoller puts it, “What connects all three of these Presidents is one thing – big ass wars, and specifically, war financing.”

Modern liberalism is a mixture of two elements. One is a support of Federal power – what came out of the late 1930s, World War II, and the civil rights era where a social safety net and warfare were financed by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the RFC, and human rights were enforced by a Federal government, unions, and a cadre of corporate, journalistic and technocratic experts (and cheap oil made the whole system run.) America mobilized militarily for national priorities, be they war-like or social in nature. And two, it originates from the anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam era, with its distrust of centralized authority mobilizing national resources for what were perceived to be immoral priorities. When you throw in the recent financial crisis, the corruption of big finance, the increasing militarization of society, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the collapse of the moral authority of the technocrats, you have a big problem. Liberalism doesn’t really exist much within the Democratic Party so much anymore, but it also has a profound challenge insofar as the rudiments of liberalism going back to the 1930s don’t work…

Ron Paul’s stance should be seen as a challenge to better create a coherent structural critique of the American political order. It’s quite obvious that there isn’t one coming from the left, otherwise the figure challenging the war on drugs and American empire wouldn’t be in the Republican primary as the libertarian candidate. To get there, liberals must grapple with big finance and war, two topics that are difficult to handle in any but a glib manner that separates us from our actual traditional and problematic affinity for both. War financing has a specific tradition in American culture, but there is no guarantee war financing must continue the way it has. And there’s no reason to assume that centralized power will act in a more just manner these days, that we will see continuity with the historical experience of the New Deal and Civil Rights Era. The liberal alliance with the mechanics of mass mobilizing warfare, which should be pretty obvious when seen in this light, is deep-rooted.

While I might quibble with his lumping the odious Wilson in with Lincoln and Roosevelt (though I suppose it may be that Wilson is included only insofar as his legacy pertains to the Federal Reserve, not because he’s a liberal icon) I think the thrust of Stoller’s argument is extremely insightful and deserving of serious contemplation by anyone who cares about liberalism in America. There may have been a time when the power of the state offered great opportunities for the left in America to achieve its primary goals of equality and justice; but in an era in which liberalism has internalized many of libertarianism’s most trenchant criticisms it’s far from a given that that time is now.

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Elias Isquith is a freelance journalist and blogger. He considers Bob Dylan and Walter Sobchak to be the two great Jewish thinkers of our time; he thinks Kafka was half-right when he said there was hope, "but not for us"; and he can be reached through the twitter via @eliasisquith or via email. The opinions he expresses on the blog and throughout the interwebs are exclusively his own.

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113 Responses

Elias, nice post. Conservatives (I’m specifically thinking of libertarian conservatives like Ron Paul) have been emphasizing this narrative for years. Wilson is rightfully included for getting us into WWI.

The idea of liberalism as an ideology of peace and conservatism as an ideology favoring constantly-increasing military budgets certainly comes after Eisenhower’s warning of the military/industrial complex and before “Reagan’s arms-race bankrupting” of the Soviets. Since both parties now favor massive U.S. military presence throughout the world, it seems that either one party failed to get the memo about the Boomer switcharoo or we actually have become increasingly militaristic since the sixties.Report

Wilson could have ended World War I five years sooner (and a damnsight cheaper) by getting us involved right at the start. The only reason Wilhelm II thought that the war was winnable was Wilson’s assistance that America would not support Great Britain in any way.Report

The party of dirty peacenik hippies, Jane Fonda, and a bunch of other long-defunct clichés of the Baby Boomer era (like zombies, they refuse to die).

Last I checked, the generation which developed those clichés had not yet physically died, so they’re not yet zombies so much.

I find the thrust of the post to be misguided, however. I can sketch alternatives:

Liberalism is deeply involved with the reallocation of power in society and its reforms can be resisted by elites. Particularly when those elites possess military power–as in the Revolutionary, Civil and Great Wars (Austria-Hungary, recall)–they may violently resist the dissolution of their authority. Under this model, we see clearly that liberalism finds itself on the defense.

Liberalism always amounts to change in societies and, until the post-War period, great changes. As such, they were only possible when existing power structures had decayed sufficiently to allow liberal reforms to advance. But decaying power structures also often mean that it is a time of conflict, so the period of great liberal reforms (or any reforms, to be honest) will often be marred by war.

The great trend of liberal reform simply went in tandem with technological changes which greatly upset the balance of power for hundreds of years because all major movements were affected by those changes. The wars and liberalism both have a secular precursor, so they went together for centuries.

The author is simply cherry-picking his data points, concentrating on big binary questions (slave-free, republic-monarchy, etc.) which don’t accurately capture the long sweeps of liberal reforms which occurred over time.

Wars expose great weaknesses in the ability of elites to rule and so liberal reform springs up from this tension.

Yeah, my crack wasn’t entirely fair. You’re exaggerating your point, but I know where you’re going with this- there are certain birth defects and developmental disorders that are effectively dying out because of abortion. None of us would say that people with down’s syndrome, for instance, “don’t deserve to live”, but there you have it. The ethical questions are obvious, but not articulated very often. I agree you should write a post.Report

This is actually far, far less true than you would think. Our “imperfects” (a phrase I am not so comfortable us using) are actually among us is surprising numbers. However, we have created a system where they remain, for the most part, out of sight and out of mind.

Do some people abort fetuses because they test positive for conditions such as downs syndrome? I’m sure this is the case. But just because we’re really good at ignoring the vast majority that come to term and are living in our society does not mean we have actually done away with them. We just like to pretend that we have.Report

In fact, I might note that in the US people with developmental disabilities make up an estimated 2% of the population; globally the number is 1.4%. This suggests that while TVD’s ethical point is still quite valid and should be discussed, I have to take issue with his statement that “we make sure such persons are never born in the first place.”Report

A 2002 literature review of elective abortion rates found that 91–93% of pregnancies in the United Kingdom and Europe with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated. Data from the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register in the United Kingdom indicates that from 1989 to 2006 the proportion of women choosing to terminate a pregnancy following prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome has remained constant at around 92%.

In the United States a number of studies have examined the abortion rate of fetuses with Down syndrome. Three studies estimated the termination rates at 95%, 98%, and 87% respectively.

While taking a shower, I was thinking about this kind of thing and culture came up over and over. Pardon my digression.

In the US, we know that abortion is, ideally, safe/legal/rare and a tool to be used to help terminate unwanted pregnancies (and as a “don’t talk about it” eugenic tool). The euphemism we tend to use is “choice”.

When abortion is exported to countries that don’t have the same feminist foundation as the US, we find that instead of merely not wanting stuff like babies with trisomy-21, many other cultures don’t want “a girl” and abortion is used to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

fascism refers to government ownership of industry and not just ideologies we dislike, right?

Well, who knows where this response will wind up, but I’ve found a surprising number of people on the Internet believe that fascism is an economic system, which it’s really not. The fascist states were corporatist, given that they had chosen “private” industries that worked very closely with the state to direct their economies, but not all corporatist nations went fascist. It’s also not quite the same thing as government ownership of industry, although I think Hayek’s really important point was that the outcomes are essentially the same. Now, the idea that corporatism gives rise to totalitarianism is useful, to a lesser extent, but one does get tired of people trying to remove the ideological content of fascism and explain it away as the natural result of things like corporatism or mass media or whatnot. The fascist countries didn’t just stumble into fascism- they chose it from a menu. And not just because they were insufficiently capitalist.Report

“Now, the idea that corporatism gives rise to totalitarianism is useful, to a lesser extent, but one does get tired of people trying to remove the ideological content of fascism and explain it away as the natural result of things like corporatism or mass media or whatnot. The fascist countries didn’t just stumble into fascism- they chose it from a menu. And not just because they were insufficiently capitalist.”

Rufus, I never meant to imply that corporatism must necessarily give rise to fascism. Nor have I tried to explain it away as the natural result of anything. I’d say totalitarianism necessarily entails corporatism (if industry is private in name only) or just every company being a branch of the government.

By the way, were there any famous fascist writers? Which artists took the fascists’s side in the Spanish Civil War? Do you think artists have generally been “on the right side of history”?Report

Yeah, I should have been more clear. I’ve heard people try to make that argument, but didn’t figure you were.

As for the right side of history… well, not all of them were on the right side of history at all. I guess the saddest example would be Ezra Pound, especially because of how it ended up. Personally, I wish Knut Hamsun wouldn’t have gone that way because it tends to overshadow what a great writer he was.Report

Do you think artists have generally been “on the right side of history”?

All you have to do is look at the history of sympathy to and support of Marxism/Sovietism among US artist, writers and intellectuals to know that making pretty pictures is no sure path to righteousness.Report

Stipulated. Pre-Iraq War W. is about as Wilsonian as modern Presidents get. Although I was thinking that Bush I’s Gulf War coalition represents a Wilsonian ideal in a certain sense. Your thoughts?Report

I sort of disagree here. Wilson was “multilateral” only in so far as he liked having backing from his friends. Wilson’s overall policy once the League of Nations became a conceptual reality during the Versailles negotiation was more of a “folks with us than against us” attitude. I know people try to play down his willingness to squash the racial equality clause in the covenant, but he was pretty clear about who he considered the multi in the multilateral.Report

The 14 points (divorced from his racial rhetoric, which arguably can’t be done from the 14th point given the refusal of the racial equality declaration) is pretty pleasing, even if only like 6 of the points have any modern applicability.

I would think the messianic view of democratization that’s similar between Wilson and GWB, but that the US has never really had another Wilson since the original. (And that’s a good thing)Report

Centralization is what centralization does. Even if you buy into the idea of it working for your purposes and then cutting the cord once someone with other motives can access it, dismantling it once you’ve laid the foundation is kinda difficult.

If liberalism is to learn anything, I’d hope it’d be to question concentration of control regardless of who is at the helm. Sure, it’d go more towards anti-authority leftism than liberalism as currently known, but…well duh.

I’m in vague Steve the Hyena’s argument, but I’m going to expand a little bit on what I think is the general tendency for conflicts and great wars to essentially put an end to liberalization movements.

From the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Meiji Restoration/Boshin War era, the Civil War and post-Reconstruction, the post-WW1, post-WW2 era, the predominant strain of politics in all victorious states in these eras is a general retrenchment and conservative nationalist movements that try to solidify new (or old) privilege structures. Usually the end result of these wars and mobilizations has been a substantial backlash by conservative, elite elements of the political classes will come together and create stability. In many cases these counter-movements STRONGLY arrest attempts at progressive/liberal politics in that last moment.

Moreover, in many circumstances the wars that take place during the ascendency of liberal movements are generally conflicts between liberalizing forces (and yes, I will go out on a limb and call William Pitt the Younger liberal, in the Whiggish sense) and an illiberal alternative to the current world order. Both movements capitalize on a moment of instability to proffer their solutions, one typically an evolutionary response and the other a revolutionary one. The challenge of liberalism in these cases is to create circumstances under which the evolutionary change is more palatable than the revolutionary change. In many cases this involved armed conflict and the use of liberal progress to rally the resources of the state into waging conflict.

Narrowing to the US perspective, which is the argument in question, I’m not sure if Obama actually represents any sort of solidification of radical warfare or “big ass” conflicts. Look, it’s fine to disagree with planks of his platform like drone-strikes, but for one thing, he’s finished the draw-down in Iraq (despite pressure not to), he’s refused to actually commit ground-troops to Libya, and he seems to be laying the groundwork for a measured withdrawal from Afghanistan after letting the generals “give it a shot” at stabilizing the place. We also have reports that the CIA has put the Af-Pak border drone program under ice since about three weeks ago in order to defuse tensions with Pakistan. This is not exactly the stance of someone who is going to escalate and create more systemic conflict.Report

I’d like to +1 the latter half of the fine Mr. Akimoto’s comment especially. Obama’s behavior hasn’t been exactly a model or even example of war spreading agression. If one considers it in light of Obama’s general MO; hypercautiousness (bordering on outright cowardice or miserlyness with his political capital), leading from behind and letting others float the trial baloons we end up with something that sounds a lot more like the domestic Obama we know; a slow agonizingly slow cautious careful creeping towards the exits on the wars coupled with a huge amount of ass covering. I’d submit that he’s moving away from wars in general (civil liberties I suspect is more of a wash, the CYA ratchet dynamic for public servants/officials is brutal in this area) but in such a slow gradual manner that you’d have to take marks to see him move.Report

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of this brilliant post. Stoller puts a finger on the grand narrative of Paul that I’ve been grasping for with my “Paul as anarchist” frame. Stoller’s post and your elaboration are pretty comprehensive, but let me see if my perspective has anything to add.

First, I’d reiterate the importance of Paul’s Southernness. If you think of the American polity as consisting of two main sects divided by the Mason-Dixon line, it’s very clear that the Northern faction is the one with the power. The North was developed first, by people from the wealthier parts of the British Isles — i.e., southern England. The American South was developed by people who were subjugated in the Old World — i.e., the Scots and Irish — by the English people who settled the North. As the English of the time were the dominant imperial power, the Southern anti-elite, anti-war revisionism popular in Paul’s circles can be situated very comfortably within anti-imperialist thought. Southern populism is best viewed as a kind of indigenous resistance to imperialistic power: it’s like Hugo Chavez’s ideology for the people who were repressed by the English imperialists even before they crossed the Atlantic.

(I’ll add more in a bit, but I wanted to get this comment out before the thread got super-long.)Report

The South’s own feudal history (a racial imperialism) and its historic and current status as the most militaristic segment of the country would seem to undermine your argument. I’d view southern populism not so much as anti-imperial as pro-nativist. The two do overlap, but they’re not synonymous and they tend to build on very different motivations.Report

+1 on this one. I mean one can argue a lot of things about the Ante-Bellum South, but “anti-imperial” is only true insofar as they were anti-Union, they were very happy to expand their reach into the western states and try to move their political agenda onward.Report

The South was also very big on overseas empire in the pre-Civil War years, launching filibusters (private invasions, not long legislative digressions) against multiple Central American nations and pushing the federal government hard for an invasion and annexation of Cuba. Prior to that, they were strongly behind the Mexican-American War. Obviously, all these things had the common intent of expanding the slaveholding area of the United States.Report

Yes I think it’s fairer to say the Ante-Bellum South was against empires they weren’t in charge of. That’s why they seceded when a Republican was elected. It demonstrated the 3/5 rule was no longer enough to guarantee them control of the Federal Government.Report

Of course. But people have long thought about the African population of the Americas through a liberationist lens. Not so much for the Scots-Irish and poor English immigrants whose descendants make up a bulk of the Republican electoral base.Report

It’s true that for a certain generation of people–one that is too old to be well-represented here–the Democrats were seen as the party of war. I first ran into this with one of my undergrad political science profs (now in his 70s), and it struck me–a child of the Carter/Reagan era–as bizarrely wrong. Upon gaining a better view of history, it’s not clearly wrong at all (we can also throw in Korea, “started” by Truman and “ended” (to the extent it’s ever ended) by Eisenhower), although the Republicans have definitely played a great game of catchup since the Nixon presidency (yes, he got us out of Vietnam, but only after radically expanding the war, and every Republican president since has had his own personal war or two).

Whether there’s actually a causal connection between Democratic administrations and war, or whether it’s really much more random, is hard to say. I think it’s probably just more normal for presidents to go to war, and the earlier difference was caused by Republican isolationism–that is, Democratic presidents were “normal” presidents, and the Republicans were aberrations. Once Republican isolationism went the way of the bimetalists, Republican presidents also became, sadly, “normal.”

There’s a bunch of other conflicts not mentioned like the Caribbean occupations or the border war between Pancho Villa and the US, but in general there doesn’t seem to be a huge overlap or pattern. There’s also all the tiny interventions Reagan and Bush I got the US involved in…Report

My point more being there’s really not much of a pattern to these interventions. So I guess your hypothesis is right in that presidents will use force when they think they can. I do disagree that there’s actually an “isolationist” element to American foreign policy. But that’s a different discussion.Report

I don’t think there WAS an isolationist element to actual policymakers even if there were know-nothings and fringe candidates who called for it in the early 20th century. I mean the Republican presidents of the early 1900s were pretty muscular in their use of force.Report

I would argue for a difference between “discretionary wars/ wars of choice” and “wars of defence” when gauging which presidents and parties have been the most interventionist or warlike. The Civil War and America’s involvement in the Second World War both began with attacks on the United States. (Okay, I’m biased by liking both Lincoln and FDR. FDR at least was certainly looking for an excuse to bring America into World War II.)

That said, since America’s interwar period of supposed isolationism (in which it still took the time for military interventions in several Central American and Caribbean nations), the only US presidents who haven’t engaged in wars, either proxy or direct, are Eisenhower and Carter (and Eisenhower used the CIA to overthrow democracies in Guatemala and Iran, while Carter supported the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan, so neither of them were perfectly peaceful, though I give Carter credit for being the most peace-inclined, humble, and non-interventionist of modern US presidents).Report

Katherine, I agree that a more careful analysis would include those distinctions. However I would argue that the Civil War was a war of choice. Lincoln could have said, “so long, motherfishers.” Of course I am unusual in thinking that ought to have done so.Report

I’m curious about this. The tensions first rose to the point of violence in the mid-late 1850s in the Territories over whether they would be free or not. A decision regarding them – one way or the other – had to be made, and even compromise wasn’t sufficient for either party. So in what sense do you think Lincoln could have walked away from engaging in a full-on war when compromise appeared to be impossible?Report

He could have let the southern states go and fought only over the territories.

Even there he could have no doubt worked out a compromise wherein the South got the more southwestern territory and the North got the more northern territory. Compromise was only impossible when the two sides were operating within the same political system; separate the systems and compromise was possible (which isn’t to say it would necessarily have been easy).

The wisdom of any of these choices can be argued, of course. (My position is based on a) my antipathy for the amount of international power the U.S. has as a consequence of its size, and b) my antipathy for the South’s political influence on the U.S.) But that these were possible options I think isn’t really disputable. But Lincoln was a nationalist, a man who believed that a good nation was a mighty one ( a view I despise), so they were not options in his playbook.Report

The racial imperialism of the South was rarely perpetrated by Southerners descended from the indigenous populations of the British Isles. There were virtually no Scots-Irish plantation owners, for instance, and the “English” indentured servants who spawned the bulk of the poor in the American South were undoubtedly of disproportionately Celtic British origin. The plantation owners were not indistinguishable from the Southern white population at large, but were instead a landed aristocracy that had its roots in wealthy populations in the Old World. Your counterargument that the South was feudal misses the mark, because the Southern populists I’ve identified had interests opposed to the aristocratic landowners. (Yes, the slaveowners successfully cultivated racial resentment among poor whites, but that’s actually kind of the point of my analysis.)

The militarism of the South is a very recent phenomenon, and can be easily be explained as cultivated by Northern elites to create an army of cannon fodder for its favored foreign wars.Report

There’s a very good reason the Confederacy had a good number of capable general officers, not to mention mid-level officers and that had to do with the fact that there was a tradition of military service in the region dating back to at least the Mexican-American War.

There’s also a long list of private military schools that span the old southern states from Virginia to the Carolinas that have been around for ages.Report

I would place the South’s penchant for military service at that time into the Manifest Destiny thing, which was more about combating other imperialist powers for land that was recently vacated by the mass death of the Native Americans. (Yes, there were still genocidal aspects to battles against the Natives, but by the time of western expansion of the South the Native populations were already almost completely exterminated by disease.)

Perhaps the South has been cannon fodder for longer than I was aware, but that still doesn’t change the fact that foreign wars were fought for the benefit of mostly-Northern economic elites.Report

(Yes, there were still genocidal aspects to battles against the Natives, but by the time of western expansion of the South the Native populations were already almost completely exterminated by disease.)

Well, and by (genocidal-in-intent) deportation, e.g. The Trail of Tears. All five of the major Native tribes of what was at the time the “frontier” south were moved out to Oklahoma by force and with massive death rates.Report

Yeah, but then, if America hadn’t done this then Spanish Mexico gladly would have. I’m not saying this as justification for genocide; I just don’t think America deserves special calumny for taking advantage of the population vacuum created by the Columbian calamity. I’m more concerned with America’s current exceptionalist global empire, which really only kicked off after WWII, and for which the South hasn’t had a particular appetite. The anticommunist conflicts of Korea and Vietnam were all about keeping the East safe for (predominately Northern) business interests, and the Iraq War was ginned up by neocons from Connecticut, New York, and Illinois. I just don’t see this grassroots push for war coming from stereotypical white Southerner voters.Report

It was an incomplete anti-imperialism, to be sure. But all anti-imperialisms are incomplete: the Native Americans who bravely fought colonial expansion surely practiced privilege against the less successful tribes, but that didn’t make them an anti-imperialist force. I think it’s stupid for the Left to categorically label Southern white culture as reactionary when there’s such strong potential for integrating it into more global, racially-egalitarian anti-imperialist movement. If Ron Paul’s candidacy represents the leading edge of this integration, it would perhaps be reactionary to combat it.Report

Perhaps US liberalism at the Presidential level coincides with wars because of the Only Nixon Could Go To China phenomenon – they all needed credentials to rebuff accusations of being “too liberal”, and the power which presidents have to do so in the 20th century is to wage wars.

What wars did Carter start anyway? Or perhaps he didn’t start enough and that lost him re-election.Report

I’d like to point out the fate of Liberalism and the trajectory of the trade union seem inextricable. In the USA, the trade unions rose in the face of hideous violence. Elsewhere this was not always so. The USA’s history of trade unionism, especially among the coal miners and steel workers, would give rise to an anti-union ethos which still lingers on.

Today’s enemies of the trade union have won the battle. Governments, especially state governments, have made closed unions largely illegal with the Right to Work laws. The old Liberal-ish laws which govern workers’ rights go unenforced. I do not particularly like the closed union but it arose in response to a system which sent in the Pinkertons and Federal troops to shoot those workers. If the unions resorted to violence, they did not start that violence.

Curiously, the two countries where unions thrive were largely established by the USA, West Germany and Japan. MacArthur brought the trade union concept to Japan, where the Japanese workers happily jumped into bed with management and that economy rose in the world. Germany doesn’t allow closed shops but it obliges corporations over a particular size to put workers’ representatives on the boards of directors.

Nowhere does the government act in defense of wage earners or their right to participate on the boards of directors of the short-sighted corporations, all too willing to jack up the stock price on the backs of the workers. Those who now scream and moan about deficits should know those deficits would be quickly erased if the government didn’t treat the workers like the enemy. Deficits rise when the economy falls and fall when the economy rises. You may not have it any other way.Report

Blaise, my grandfather was a Wobblie for a time. There was a LOT more to it than “unionization”. He was from the Western Federation of Miners leg and trust me, the violence went both ways. I’m not even going to say either side was right, although it is easy to say both sides were wrong. You’ll find that the German and Japanese unions did not have the socialist, anarchist and radical elements to them that the US unions did. These guys weren’t just looking for a better job, they were looking to create their own Soviet. Given what the world had just witnessed at the other Soviet, more than a few were more than a bit terrified should that come to pass here. It likely could have but we didn’t have the onerous aristocracy to rally against, just the onerous capitalists, many of whom (provably) started from just as dire straits as those conspiring against them. And that’s why it failed. At least here, there was the /hope/ if not the certitude that one could climb the ladder of success, a hope that was abysmally absent in the Old World.Report

The miners didn’t start in with the violence. I know enough about the history of the trade union movement to say that’s true. Bicameral Poxation is no defense for what went down in that struggle. End of story. Don’t try that line of reasoning on me, we both know better if your grandfather was a Wobbly. They weren’t looking for a better job, they were only looking for their jobs to be better and safer with shorter hours and let’s not forget the problem of child labor down those mines. John Spargo:

As I stood in that breaker I thought of the reply of the small boy to Robert Owen. Visiting an English coal mine one day, Owen asked a twelve-year-old lad if he knew God. The boy stared vacantly at his questioner: “God?” he said, “God? No, I don’t. He must work in some other mine.” It was hard to realize amid the danger and din and blackness of that Pennsylvania breaker that such a thing as belief in a great All-good God existed. Y’know, I’ve heard all this hatin’ on trade unions and summoning up the Ghost of Lenin before, in Central America when the Guatemalan Civil War was going on. I’ve said before when anyone said “Reform” all the dictators heard was “Communism”. The ladder of success is rigged in favor of those whose parents are already up that ladder: education is the trap door through which the children of the poor are fated to fall. The very goddamned idea, that the certitude of that ladder of success was any more present here than in the Old World fills me with a dark hilarity. The trade union and the progressives brought the reforms today’s Conservatives would dare to oppose in the open. Instead, their tactic is the same as those Central American dictators, to break the trade unions and they’d murder the dissidents if they could get away with it here as they do down there.Report

John D. Rockefeller – a name synonymous with wealth and prestige was the son of a con man and worked as an assistant bookkeeper. His 3 steps to wealth were: 1) Go to work early. 2) Stay late 3) Find oil.Report

“In the USA, the trade unions rose in the face of hideous violence. Elsewhere this was not always so.”

I’m not sure if you are saying there was more labor protest violence (or if you prefer, counter-protestor violence) in the US when compared to Europe, or less. It would require an asterisk either way , as Europe had several more bloody revolutions, epic wars, and the proximity to Communism (both the geographic and political sense)Report

I’d thought this post might head in a different direction, perhaps moving forward from the more challenging, if pessimistic or at least skeptical, remarks from a few days ago.

The phrase “the odious Wilson” is what stood out for me. It’s polemics, Glenn Beck/Jonah Goldberg/George Will polemics as a matter of fact, not a considered historical judgment. There’s also a school of leftwing anti-Wilsonism, of course, just as there was left-progressive and far left opposition to many elements of Wilson’s program in his own day, but origins on the broadly defined left are in themselves no guarantee of better results.

The un- or half-informed attack on Wilson is typical of the problem with RonPaulism and especially with the self-styled “anti-imperialist” attraction to Paul. In the absence of a well thought-out critique and alternative, inserting the word “imperialist” into your discourse and attaching some quasi-pacifistic moralizing to it reduces to a mere pose. A similar process often occurs on the “domestic” or “economic” side of the argument.

Wilson possessed a comprehensive, and historically and practically grounded theory of the state and of the use of state power. It equipped him to operate effectively – not perfectly or anywhere close to it, that’s never in the cards, but consequentially – within a system whose flaws and limitations he had written and reflected on in great detail over the course of decades. Few of his detractors, then and perhaps especially now, can say the same in either regard. This weakness helps explain their attraction to a phenomenon like the Paul candidacy, and it also helps explain their difficulties responding coherently to the presidency of Barack Obama.Report

I don’t follow how Wilson’s undeniable intellect somehow detracts from him being, by our standards — and many of his own day — a rather contemptible human being.

His messianism, authoritarianism, racism, chauvinism, narcissism, and overall mean-spiritedness were manifest in many of his most consequential and influential policies…I mean, there’s been a ton of really smart stuff brought up in this thread thus far so I’m hesitant to side-track with a comparatively secondary argument about Wilson, but I’m just not sure that antipathy towards him is so easily reduced to being a sign of political obtuseness or naivety.Report

Antipathy toward Wilson or anyone else isn’t the issue. Comprehending what Wilson represents historically, apart from what amounts to gossip or historical fallacy (application of “our standards” to Wilson and his era), is what might matter.

I think the the state in world history is the issue. Paulian libertaritanism is not unique among fringe ideologies in wanting to wish away the world – not just the American “empire,” but the political itself both globally and nationally.

As we discussed on another thread, Paul embraces an 18th Century utopian view of peace-through-trade. It also happens to connect to an 18th Century philosophy of the individual and property, and to a certain idea of Americanism that, as it happens, Wilson specifically criticized and strenuously opposed.

A pre-critical anti-imperialism might somewhat similarly neglect to consider what a process of global devolution of power and disconnection from existing political-economic commitments would entail. It mainly expresses the anxiety of (neo-)empire – here as justifiable but impotent moral discomfort with drone warfare, or legalistic attacks on the Libya operation, and so on – but it has no viable alternative solution for the problems that empire and the imperial presidency rose up to address. Projected into the past and on to Wilson, the president whom history called upon to usher America onto the world stage as lead actor, it expresses the same anxiety.

As for the rest of what Wilson and Wilsonian progressivism represented in its time and still represent today, that’s a long, though to my mind potentially quite useful, discussion. In important ways, Wilson is the anti-Paul, and it can be very difficult to criticize Paul without in one way or another ending up on Wilson’s side (if not more so)- even if Wilson was in other ways fully a typical creature of his times – on racial issues and on most other matters – as one would expect of any two-term president of the US of A.

See, my problem with Wilson is that he didn’t go FAR ENOUGH in advocating for collective security on a racial equality basis, and telling the British and Australians to go fuck themselves when they opposed the racial equality clause. Fundamentally, Wilson’s overall international system was based on two unsustainable ideas: 1. that the American reactionary wing (from which I think the anti-UN activists in the post-WW2 era and the isolationism of Ron Paul also share in) would stay quiet for long enough to get the League of Nations into effect, and 2. That the western preponderance of influence and League mandates would actually be good for the world.

I would argue that along with the Kanto earthquake, Wilson’s inability to see the short-sightedness of rejecting racial equality helped turn Japan’s nascent imperialism into something far darker and far more confrontational with the West.Report

Wilson was actually a bit of a reactionary on racial issues, even for his time. I think an unfair implication happening here is that my disdain for Wilson is one side of a coin, and enthusiasm for Paul is the other. My issues with him are not his globalism or his idealism, per se, but primarily the haphazard and ineffectual way in which he set about bringing both into fuller manifestations. (So I’m basically with NA.) Another way of putting this is that if we look at Wilson simply for the ideas he represented, there’s a lot to admire; but the man himself was so deeply flawed that he often damaged those ideas through his needlessly shoddy implementation. And this is all without getting to his domestic policy during the war w/r/t dissenters and the like which I can’t accept either seeing as superfluous or less than contemptible.Report

It’s true that WIlson was a disappointment to many in his own day on race – a subject which his biographer John Milton Cooper acknowledges as a grave obstacle for any would-be Wilson defenders. Cooper assessed him as “essentially resembl[ing] the great majority of white northerners of this time in ignoring racial problems and wishing they would go away.” It was the time of Plessy v Ferguson, and the Wilson Administration’s segregation policies continued those of the prior administration and were expanded under his successor – Warren “Racial Amalgamation There Cannot Be” Harding.

Wilson’s record regarding war dissenters has been subject to grossly misleading and exaggerated depictions, including in Goldberg’s book mentioned somewhere above and, as one might expect, in Beck’s TV rants. Much of what truth there is to the criticism of Wilson regarding civil liberties, or more accurately of his administration since Wilson was overseas or incapacitated during most of the crucial period, also represents historical fallacy. War fever was overwhelming in those years, and customary attitudes toward police power and civil liberties generally much diffeent: The Espionage Act pased by acclamation (unanimity in other words), the later Sedition Act by an overwhelming majority.

On treatment of dissenters as well as actual conduct of the American military intervention in Europe, Wilson represented the middle ground in many respects, and from a peculiarly “progressive” perspective regarding U.S. war aims and the American post-war negotiating position. More generally, accusing Wilson of “needlessly shoddy implementarion” requires you, among other things, to discount the raft of historic legislation passed during his first term, and to hold him accountable for the political success of foreign and domestic opponents whom he quite literally nearly killed himself while fighting.

As you can perhaps guess, this isn’t my first go-round on this subject. Rather than pimp my blog to the comment thread, I’ll invite you to e-mail me if you want to explore the background issues further, and I’ll provide you with some links and leads. I don’t know that the details are really essential, unless polemical anti-Wilsonism works to obscure the point that Kolohe was also getting at below, Wilson as a “pivot point” in American history. We are almost all Wilsonians today, though not necessarily “good Wilsonians,” and that to me represents a judgment of history that goes well beyond, and is probably much more important, than anything anyone happens to feel about T Woodrow the man, or the incidental pluses and minuses of his policy-making.Report

Wilson was more than a northerner with a blind spot to racial issues; he was a southerner (born in Virginia), whose parents had moved south from Ohio in the 1850s and identified with the Confederacy, and who praised the film Birth of the Nation (original title, The Clansmen). He was a virulent racist, as were most southerners of his time.

But my primary beef with him, despite my virulent disdain for racists, is that he was the architect and primary theoretical advocate of the modern executive-centered government that has been so harmful to the U.S.Report

“He was a virulent racist, as were most southerners white people of his time even today.”

FTFY. This “Southerners are racists” meme really needs to die. I used to believe it too, but now that I’ve moved to the North (from the West) it’s hard to conclude that the North isn’t just chauvinistic about its own form of racism.Report

Yeah, there’s something to that, and it’s important to note that the Brown case was about segregation in Kansas. But segregation as a legal matter was far more prevalent in the South, lynching was far more prevalent in the South (even though my own home state of Indiana had a nasty history of it, too), and moderate whites who supported civil rights legislation were far scarcer in the south than the north. There’s also the unavoidable historical fact that there was a mass migration of blacks from the South to the North, because by god they could get actual paying jobs there and just possibly a fair jury trial if it came to that.

So, as to retiring that meme, I think not. Rather, the meme that needs to die is the revisionist southern meme, based on a handful of anecdotes, that the North was every bit as bad as the South.

The North and South were (and are) bad in different ways. I wonder how many more lynchings there would have been in the North if there were as much occasion for interaction between the races as there was in the South. And I wonder if de jure segregation would have been more prevalent in the North if the culture there hadn’t imposed such a thorough de facto segregation. And I wonder if the (mostly upper-class) Northern whites who supported civil rights legislation would have done so if it were at all likely that they would have been forced to allow blacks into their law firms, medical practices, executive offices, or posh neighborhoods. Let’s not forget how school busing went in “liberal” Boston.Report

Also, racial quotas in employment were never enforced in the professions. In fact, when individual states tried to do it by proxy, the Supreme Court ruled their actions unconstitutional. It wasn’t until 2003 — after thirty-eight years of improved race relations in the North and the South — that these schemes were even permitted.Report

So Liberals are hypocrites? Color me surprised. Doesn’t stop them from screaming “racist” at every conservative they see. Guess it takes one to know one.

Even though I’m no card-carrying conservative, it does bother me to be painted with that brush continuously by liberals given that my wife isn’t even white and most of our friends aren’t either. It is good smear strategy, because virtually any argument in defense merely makes one look worse for the effort. Liberals even call blacks racist, showing the depths to which they’ll stoop.Report

I don’t know. I don’t make much of a distinction between sins of commission and sins of omission. Even if few people have the energy for naked racial warfare, most white people are still pretty content with a system that has regrettably similar effects.Report

Yes, send me an e-mail, if you would, with some resources to check out. This has been very interesting and I’ve mainly read modern Wilson revisionism and thus could use some exposure to the arguments of his defenders. One thing I’ll always give him props for is the Brandeis appointment. Oh and just FWIW, “shoddy implementation” was meant to refer to his struggles as WWI neared its end, not his domestic pursuits. But, yes, if you’ve the time an e-mail would be much appreciated.Report

An excellent post and an excellent comment thread. One should keep in mind though that the American

conservative and liberal intellectual traditions

conservative and liberal political traditions, and

actual politics of the Jefferson-Jackson-FDR-LBJ Democratic continuum and the Federalist-Whig-Republican continuum

are three distinct things from each other, and each are built upon the shifting sands of time – increasingly, of course, as one goes down the list. In some of the conversation above, the terms of reference have been conflated across these three spectra. (And going further into winners & losers and good guys & bad guys would require two additional axes)

For instance, the liberal intellectual anti-war tradition goes back to Not-Blogger Thoreau, (who also kicked off some of the political tradition by going to jail in support of his position), which then made a circuitous path to the post LBJ liberal anti-war political tradition, with a detour in Eugene Debs. But in any case, did not of originate in the Vietnam era.

Plus, going back to Woodrow Wilson again, who it seems nobody likes anymore – at the very least, nobody wants to accept as their own – he is nonetheless the pivot point in American history in all three items above. Moreso than even Lincoln and FDR in a sense, as the changes were more subtle and profound. (Though clearly, the former two created more wholesale change in the way American government and society was structured). Just by the creation of the Fed, Wilson turned heel on over a century of liberal political and intellectual tradition, and Democratic politics, by embracing central banking.Report

There are so many begged questions herein, why not simply aggregate them into a Begged Questionnaire? This country’s wars are only the latest manifestation of the policies which get us into them: we don’t start these wars. They come a-begging to our doorstep. Case in point, the odious Maliki of Iraq, a terrorist of no small caliber who hornswoggled a series of administrations into believing Iraq was a terrible enemy.

The nuclear weapon served as the lawn mower of history, ensuring the dandelions would only flower below the height of the blades. This country does have enemies, real ones who understand how to bring us to bankruptcy through constantly running that expensive lawn mower. Since the era of Bakunin and Mao, this process has been well-understood.

To put it charitably, Yves Smith doesn’t understand the Left. Less charitably, it’s all shibboleth mongering, blissfully devoid of any supporting facts. There’s been precious little Left-ism in the USA since the end of the Vietnam War and arguably, those folks weren’t terribly Leftist. As Steely Dan put it “All those Day-Glo freaks who used to paint their face / they’ve joined the human race / life can be very strange.” Where is the Left anymore? Perhaps they’re over on DailyKos, wringing their hands and bickering among themselves. The Left is powerless in this country. Since the death of the trade union at the hands of Reagan, it’s been reduced to a puppet used to terrify the rubes. Boo! Socialism!

Insofar as this country wages war these days, it’s all run in the dark. Nobody really knows what’s going on in these wars, they’re self-justifying and nobody dares pull the plug on them. Were the USA end them, a host of unemployed veterans would enter the economy. Bases would close and we can’t have that. We saw what happened with the last round of base closures: Democrats and Republicans alike were all squealing like so many outraged hogs. This warmongering business is bipartisan.

Woodrow Wilson didn’t want his war, either. As previously stated, the war came to him. Wilson tried to mediate in WW1 but when it became apparent the Germans were conniving to start a war in Mexico, he was pushed into it by everyone. Eventually Wilson, who had run on the platform of “He Kept Us Out of War” had a gutful of what the Germans were doing and entered the war. The Left has come to terms with the Federal Reserve because it’s common sense.

Anyone who seriously contemplates the abolishment of the Federal Reserve should buy a few futures contracts of West Texas crude and imagine his paycheck denominated on that basis. The Left may be a bit idealistic, what few of us remain. But we aren’t fiscal idiots.Report

As to the last bit about the Fed, question from the Naked Capitalism essay which motivated Elias’ post was this: how can the left answer the Paulian charge that central finance has led to wars which are necessary (or sufficient?, I can’t really tell what Stoller means) for the implementation liberal goals? (Actually, it was an assertion: that the left has no answer.)

I think the answer – more/less – is what you say above: that wars come to us – at least the “big ass wars” that Stoller identifies as pivotal in shaping the history of liberal progress. But I think his view of things puts the cart before the horse. For Stoller’s thesis to make any sense at all, the following would have to be the case: 1) the left centralizes finance in the Federal government, 2) the left looks for a war to enter for the express purpose of disrupting domestic institutional structures, and 3) the left opportunistically imposes new policies. I think that’s historically wrong, but more importantly, the connection he wants to establish – between central financing and liberalism – can’t merely be one of correlation (since every war requires financing) but of causality.

That’s where I think his defense of Paul is lacking. Paul’s thesis isn’t that wars and central financing are correlated for extraneous reasons, but rather that central financing in the hands of liberals is causally necessary and sufficient for presumably all the wars the US has engaged in. He’s providing a political analysis here. Liberal war iff central financing. Personally, I don’t see that he’s made the argument.

The Democrats, especially William Jennings Bryan, had advocated for an income tax for the USA. Bryan would become Wilson’s Secretary of State and resign over Wilson’s shift toward war. I wouldn’t call the Democrats of that period Leftists, there were Socialists around in the form of Eugene Debs. If anything, Wilson was just a moderate who made an end run around the Democratic Machine’s candidate.

The USA had financed its wars with income taxes before. The Civil War featured an income tax but the Revenue Act of 1862 had a four year window. But it did set up the precedent for what would become the IRS in time.

Neither Lincoln nor Wilson were Liberals by any definition. Both tried to stave off a war they probably understood was inevitable. Read Lincoln’s First Inaugural, a triumph of wishful thinking. Wilson, ditto. A central government will be centrally financed, no matter who’s in charge, Liberal or Conservative or Martian.Report

The British case of income tax imposition during the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic era I think serves as an interesting example as well. In general the centralization seems to happen as more moderate elements of the nation’s polity come together to try to forge ahead against a revolutionary agenda.Report

Yeah, exactly. Consider how the French came to grief, sailing up onto the rocks of financial ruin because their tax collection mechanism didn’t adapt. They’d been at war with Britain forever, financing our War of Revolution as well.

Sun Tzu:

Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.Report

In general the centralization seems to happen as more moderate elements of the nation’s polity come together to try to forge ahead against a revolutionary agenda.

Since I’m still a little confused about Stoller’s essay linking liberalism and war … doesn’t what you say here contradict his thesis? I mean, I’m really having a hard time finding the content of his argument, other than the view I expressed above. On the one hand, I think it’s empirically false. But despite that, it seems to me he’s arguing for something far stronger than contingent relations between centralized finance and liberal goals/wars: he’s trying to make a conceptual link. Since he has all the facts wrong – in my view – the conceptual argument is harder to find. Nevertheless, I think that’s what he’s trying to do: demonstrate that liberalism is fundamentally incoherent since its domestic policy goals are inextricably dependent on war and central finance.Report

I just want to say that in general this has been one of my favorite comment threads in my time thus far at the League; and that I think a lot of you have poked holes in Stoller’s model to such a degree that I’m tempted to send this to him and ask for a response. Sincere golf clap, all.Report

I anticipate that the ability to execute large-scale warfare, on a global scale, will begin declining soon; neither party will be the “party of war”. WWII was made possible by large-scale supplies of diesel and gasoline, and won by the side with essentially unlimited access to supplies of same. Standard history books make much of the US manufacturing capacity during WWII; too few point out that those ships, tanks, and planes would have been useless without the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma. Global net oil exports are beginning to decline; my back-of-the-envelope estimate is that 25 years out, the US will have access to only about half the liquid fuels that it uses today. Absent existential threats, the civilian population will not be willing to surrender a large enough share of those fuels to the military to support the logistics of an operation even as large as Iraq has been.Report

I’m not so sure it’s correct to include Wilson in the “presided over a military buildup” category. The big American buildup happened under Theodore Roosevelt, and Wilson just inherited that (indeed, as I said earlier, the American Navy was seen as such a significant power that World War I wouldn’t have happened if Wilson hadn’t been so ardently noninterventionist.)Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

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Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.